


When they were eight

by i_gaze_at_scully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:13:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21537265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_gaze_at_scully/pseuds/i_gaze_at_scully
Summary: AU (canon-divergent) where Scully and Samantha met pre-X files
Kudos: 4





	When they were eight

1\. Dana’s able to pick kids out at the canteen. Kids who would be mean to her, kids who would be nice but would tease her about her hair behind her back, kids who wanted to compete with her (and always win), and kids who would want to do the same stuff she did. Like look for cecropia moths. She’d just learned about cecropia moths in school that year, they were so cool. Sometimes she thought they were cooler than butterflies, but she’d be happy to have either. 

There weren’t many kids in the canteen who fell into that category though, the ones she could maybe be friends with at this new camp. So she sits at a table near the kitchen and reads while she eats, careful not to get any crumbs in her book.

2\. “I like your hair,” someone says, and Dana looks up at a girl with dark braids and a missing bottom tooth. “Mine’s the color of dirt. My mom says chocolate, but my brother says dirt. Who cares what he thinks though - his hair’s the same color as mine, only a little lighter. I like yours, it’s like… a penny. The good kid, the new, shiny kind, you know?” One pigtail swings behind her shoulder as she gives Dana a small wave. “I’m Samantha,” she says. “Can I sit?”

Dana nods and pushes her penny hair behind her ear. “Do you like bugs?” She blurts out, and she can feel herself getting all red, like a tomato or a cherry. But to her surprise, Samantha, with a huge bite of mashed potatoes gathered in her cheek, nods vigorously.

“I love bugs!! I caught a firefly in a jar last summer and kept it the whole time! My dad wouldn’t let me keep it after I got back from camp though, so I let it go. Did you know-” she whispers, leaning closer. “–that fireflies are actually _flying beetles??_ ” 

Dana likes Samantha already. 

3\. Dana likes that Samantha has a brother, because she gets it.

“He really really really really really really annoys me. A lot,” Samantha confides one day, hanging upside down from a good climbing tree they found behind the cabins. “But he’s also super cool and I miss when we would play together all the time. He only plays with me now when mom and dad tell him he has to.”

Dana understands, calling up memories of Bill chasing her around the lawn with the hose sprinkler when she was little. Now he’s in middle school and doesn’t have time for her or Melissa or Charlie. Charlie is too little to play with, but Dana hopes they’ll have fun together. 

Oh to be little again. Being eight is hard. 

4\. Seven weeks fly by; memories made, marshmallows toasted, spooky stories told. Suddenly Dana and Samantha are being picked up, about to travel in total opposite directions. Samantha back to Massachusetts (which Dana struggled to spell until Samantha taught her a trick!) and Dana to California. They exchange addresses, with their moms’ permission, and Dana gives Samantha a big hug before she gets in the car. A little wave as they drive away. 

They write to each other every week. _I don’t know what you’re learning in third grade in Massachusetts, but we’re learning the fifty states here, so I know how to spell Massachusetts even without the trick! And, I know its capital is Boston and its initials are M.A. and the flag has a man in a robe on it!!! Ha-ha!_

_We’re learning about the states too!!!! Mississippi is my favorite. Talk about tricky spelling! But it’s really fun. I don’t know the capitals yet, but Fox said he’d help me, which is really nice, and I didn’t think he would but I think the states were just so easy for him he feels bad for me you know?_

After Thanksgiving, Samantha stops writing back. Dana gets really sad. Her mom says she’s probably just busy with the holidays, but when Dana’s birthday passes in February, she stops holding out hope.

5\. It takes her until the X Files are shut down, until she has to turn down a photo of a little girl with chocolate colored braids to see her partner, that she realizes who Samantha was. And that someone never stopped holding out hope.


End file.
